


Heroes

by illwynd



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 11:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: Faced with angry survivors of the destruction of Asgard, Thor doesn't know what to do. Loki offers what help he can.





	Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> So there’s that theory going around about Ragnarok being merely Thor’s version of the story, told to cheer up the surviving Asgardians or whatnot, and not necessarily an accurate recounting. I don’t actually think that idea fits the facts, but… ficlet anyway. Just because.
> 
> Originally posted on [my tumblr](https://illwynd.tumblr.com/post/178136996415/so-theres-that-theory-going-around-about-ragnarok).

The shock did eventually wear off.

Nine days sailing across the vast darkness between stars, in a strange ship, people crammed in together in discomfort, in grief. Orphaned children wandering, crying. Survivors sobbing into each other’s arms. Widows perched at the edge of the hastily prepared narrow bunks, hands clenched at their sides and their eyes empty.

The shock did wear off, and voices rose. A clamor of anger. Grief turned to bitterness and blame. And, yes, the one who now led them had saved them. But was he not also at fault? He, or his father. Or his long-forgotten sister. His blood, anyway. Voices rose, and Thor faced them as well as he could…

Voices rose, and hours later Thor trembled, sunk down in his berth as the weight of it all grew too much.

Loki stood above him, silent, stroking Thor’s shorn hair to comfort him. Loki, who had been loyal at his side since their near-disastrous reunion upon Midgard, what now seemed half a life ago. That day Thor had learned of his brother’s deception, and their father had perished, and Thor’s rage had boiled in the very moment Hela was released, and he had nearly—

“Shh,” Loki soothed, his fingernails whispering in Thor’s hair. His hands upon Thor’s shoulders, his brow. Wiping at his tears. “Shh, brother. It will all be well.”

Thor breathed heavily. His empty eye stung. Above all, he had nothing left but doubt, uncertainty. Despair.

“How,” he asked, through an aching throat. “How can it be well? They have lost everything. How will they ever trust me?”

“Well, you will have to explain to them what happened. Why we failed. How it came to this.”

Thor shuddered, and this time he could not choke back the flow of his tears. He did not want to explain it; he did not wish to know it himself. The horrors of Asgard’s past which had been hidden. The mistakes that had piled upon mistakes as he and Loki fought their way home, too late, too late, too late—

Thor did not realize he had curled over until Loki’s fingers tucked beneath his chin and tilted his face back upward.

“It will be well,” Loki insisted, and Thor sank grateful into Loki’s faith. “And they will trust you, because you will tell the tale such that they can believe. Such that they can set aside their anger with you and with Father, and attend rather to surviving this trial and living once more. It will be well.”

Thor gazed into his brother’s eyes, eyes that held green fields Thor would never glimpse again, fields and forests lit with sunlight, dappled and glimmering, watered by his storms. Loki’s expression was tender, and his hand strayed to rest at the edge of Thor’s neck. Thor leaned into that as well, and some of the weight lifted.

Then Loki kissed him, lips gentle and warm on Thor’s mouth. And he pulled back with a soft, devious smile.

“Because you will put the blame on me.”

The words sank in.

“Loki… no, I… I cannot…”

“You can. I can endure it. They will hate and distrust me, but that’s hardly new.”

Thor shook his head again, in refusal. Or dismay. “You should not  _have_  to endure it. It would not be fair.”

Loki again gave him that same smile. “What is fair? Come, you know I’m right. Let me have this, this little deception. It’s what I’m best at, anyway. Let us use it to your advantage.”

Thor said nothing right away but he laid his head against Loki’s waist, all the weight sinking down through him, into the floor.

Beyond the ship’s walls the stars streamed past, far out in the emptiness. Millions of miles of silence and darkness and cold.

In this last flickering space of warmth and light, Thor closed his eye and breathed and let Loki continue to stroke his hair.


End file.
